Free Rust and Bone by Craig Davidson Page A

disclosed that my scrotum’s core temperature equaled that of a steam cooker’s. The few vulcanized sperm able to withstand the heat were reduced to heaving their exhausted flagellate forms against my wife’s egg in the manner of bedraggled boat-people flinging themselves upon the impregnable walls of an asylum-denying nation.
    Ketchum prescribed pills and herbal remedies, ordered the daubing of foul-smelling ointments and the quaffing of putrid teas. He suggested immersion in cold baths or icepack application to the affected region before intercourse. None of these measures proving effective, Ketchum advocated a strenuous exercise routine and … other tactics.
    â€œHave you encouraged your wife to stimulate you anally? Gentle manipulation of the sphincter encourages more vigorous orgasms and promotes semen—”
    â€œNo, we … no.”
    Ketchum emits a robust, let’s-not-be-prudish laugh. “Then by all means try . It’s a natural, healthy sexual activity. Nothing peculiar or unmanly about it.”
    A fleeting image: Ketchum’s naked, pinata-hollow body squirming delightedly under the anal ministrations of a faceless, tentacle-fingered woman.
    â€œIt’s not that desperate.”
    â€œBut your wife must be getting impatient.”
    â€œAlison’s fine,” I lie.
    Sex has become a grim struggle punctuated by bizarre and superstitious rituals. While I lounge in bed with a bag of frozen peas thawing in my boxers, Alison discreetly checks her internal temperature against the magical twenty-seven degrees Centigrade ideal for conception. She has dressed as a French maid, a succubus, a cheerleader— Ra-ra, hey-hey, fertilize that egg to-day! —a schoolgirl, a milkmaid; the local costume shop conducts a brisk trade on my singular shortcoming. No sooner have I made my contribution than she’s shoved me away, elevating her hips and bicycle-kicking her legs, body contorted into grotesque runic formations to aid my seed in “taking.” Worst is the look on Alison’s face as I come: a look of disquieting, anxious futility. Not this time, tiger. You didn’t bring the thunder .
    â€œAlison’s just fine,” I repeat. “We have other interests.”
    â€œWonderful. It’s important for couples with such issues to pursue outside goals.” He flips the dossier shut. “Keep those exercises up—” a few more demonstrative deep-knee bends “—and don’t forget the urethra-widening—” his eyes trail down to my calf “—good lord, James, what happened to your leg?”
    ALISON’S FATHER OWNS a dairy farm on the outskirts of St. Catharines. When he spies a sick cow, he spraypaints an orange circle around the rear left leg. At night, when all the other chores are finished, he leads it to a brook running behind the house and shoots it in the skull. Once, when Alison and I were visiting at Christmas, he asked her to take care of a sick calf; it was cold and her father’s arthritis was acting up. Alison asked did he keep his gun in the same spot.
    Bundled in parkas and toques, we went out to the barn. Can’t say why I tagged along, exactly, except perhaps morbid curiosity, or out of the misplaced notion she needed the moral support. The barn was dark and earthy, claustrophobic with the stink of livestock. Cattle snorted and heaved, expelling plumes of oyster-gray steam from their nostrils. We waded between their milling flanks, guided by bars of dusky sunlight pouring through the slats. A sponge-like tumor the rough size of a softball was tethered to the calf’s jaw by a strip of skin. Alison shooed the youngster from its hiding spot beneath its mother’s belly. The cow let it go without a fight, as if knowing it was sick, what needed to be done.
    She led it down to the water, guiding it gently with a switch snapped off an elm tree. The calf’s eyes wide and dark and dumb. The